


Show and Tell

by Mercutio



Series: Coffee Talk [3]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-03-28
Updated: 2002-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-01 07:41:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/353883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercutio/pseuds/Mercutio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Clark and Lex talk after a movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Show and Tell

"Wow. That movie really sucked." 

Lex tucked his hands into his pockets to remove temptation. "Strange. I thought you'd like Blade II." 

"I think you just insulted my intelligence, Lex." 

"No. If I wanted to insult your intelligence, I'd ask you about your friendship with Whitney." 

"I'm not friends with-- oh. Well, it was a stupid movie." 

"What didn't you like about it? It seemed to have everything -- vampires, explosions, guns, gore, women..." 

"C'mon, you know what I mean. The plot. Why didn't they just flip up those little blue things on their guns and use their sunlight rays? But nooo -- they just kept shooting at the reapers, even though they'd already figured out that the reapers were immune to bullets. Please." 

"Well, if they'd done that, they wouldn't have had much of a movie, now would they?" 

"But it would make sense." 

Lex stopped next to his car, a blue Mercedes today because it had more leg room, and used the security keychain to beep the locks. "There were too many of them in the tunnels. The little beam of light on the guns wouldn't have been able to get through that many bodies." 

"But they still should have done it." 

Clark looked good, ranting enthusiastically about the flaws in the movie, Lex thought, opening his door. Over the top of the car, he said to Clark, "Wasn't that one guy -- Reinhardt? -- using his?" 

"Maybe," Clark allowed, opening his own door. They got in, and he continued, "I don't think so, though. Except that one time, when he used it to dissolve the single reaper. That was pretty cool." 

Seatbelts fastened, Lex started the car, and prepared to maneuver them through Metropolis traffic. "So, Clark, what did you tell your parents about this outing?" 

"That I was going to see a movie with you, and that I'd be back before ten. Why?" 

It really was nice having a car with a stick shift that almost demanded he brush his hand up against Clark's leg. And rather pathetic that he'd descended so far into infatuation that a stolen touch was the highlight of his day. "I think I've developed a complex about being shot. I don't want our second date to end with the sight of my blood." 

Clark snorted. "Even if he did go for the rifle, you'd just talk him out of it. You're good at convincing people about stuff." 

"Let's see -- how would that go? 'Please, Mr. Kent, don't kill me. I've just been brainwashing your only son with my evil ways. I'm sure it's nothing permanent.'" 

"Nah. You'd be all suave. Probably get him to admit he was wrong and... hey! Lex! You could help me negotiate a later curfew." 

He couldn't help it. He laughed. "A true test of my business acumen. Definitely the toughest audience I'll ever have, with the possible exception of my own father, who would know exactly what I was up to." 

Clark's tone was tentative. "Is everything okay right now with you and your father?" 

"As good as it ever gets. As long as he stays out of Smallville, and I stay in it, everything will be fine." 

"Um, Lex?" 

"Yeah?" Driving a bit too fast for the number of cars out on the street, letting his reflexes compensate for it. 

"You do know that you're in Metropolis right now, don't you?" 

The mischief in Clark's voice went a long way to calming Lex down, but Lionel Luthor was still not a subject he enjoyed talking about. "A momentary aberration. We'll be back to the sticks where we belong in no time." 

"Is it so bad being in Smallville?" 

Passes a taxi and a sedan, cuts off a second taxi to drop back into the right lane where he can think about his answer. "Not... as much as it was at first. There are certain compensations for living there." Takes a quick look at Clark, then decides to risk a moment of honesty. "I may have had a more active social calendar in Metropolis, but I didn't have anyone I could call an actual friend. At this point, I think I'm mostly irked that it's not my choice to stay." 

And it looks like his sacrifice was for nothing, because Clark is hurt, and that's not the reaction Lex wanted at all. "You don't want to stay here?" 

"No!" Lex said quickly. "I mean... I just want it to be my own decision. Not something my father's pressuring me into. I wouldn't have chosen to come to Smallville, but now that I have, yes, I think I would stay." 

And the smile that gets is definitely worth any vulnerability he's just exposed. 

"I'm glad, Lex. I like having you here." 

The warmth that produced was almost enough to bask in, but some lingering doubt remained in Lex's mind. "So why were you playing the pronoun game last night with your parents?" 

"Pronoun game?" Clark sounds genuinely confused. 

"Using 'they' or 'them' instead of 'he', 'she', 'him' or 'her' in a conversation. Usually employed to cover up an interest in someone of an inappropriate gender." 

"You noticed." 

"Yeah. I did." And had promptly invited Clark to a movie not playing in Smallville, so that he could torture himself by sitting next to Clark for several hours without touching him. 

"Do you think they noticed?" 

"Last night? No. Your mother assumed you were talking about a girl, and you didn't contradict her. They'll probably be happy with that, especially since it _is_ a small town and I doubt they want to think about the possibility of you being gay." 

"But I'm not gay." 

Lex resisted the urge to knock his head against the back of his seat. "Of course not. So why were you playing the pronoun game?" 

"Well, you know I like Lana..." 

"Right." 

"So I must be bi." 

Lex kept himself from swerving into oncoming traffic with great difficulty. When he'd regained control of the car, he risked a glance at Clark, who had a very large smile on his face. "That was just evil, Clark. I'm proud of you." 

"The brainwashing is working then." 

He remembered his earlier comment. "I didn't mean it like that." And being with Clark was apparently good for upping his honesty quotient, because he found himself saying, "I don't think I'd like you as much if you were like me. I don't like me all that much sometimes. You're... well, if I end up a little more like you, it'd probably be for the best." 

"I like you the way you are, Lex." 

He kept his eyes firmly on the road. Didn't want to meet Clark's. "You hardly know me." 

"Why do you do that?" 

"Do what?" 

"Push people away like that." 

Ah, that. He flashed a brief, tight smile at Clark. "Must be the tiny spark of decency left in me." 

A hand settled on his shoulder. "You're not a monster, Lex." 

He closed his eyes for a second, and then brought the car to a screeching halt by the side of the road. 

"Lex?" 

Both hands on the wheel, he rested his head against it and tried to breathe. When he knew he had himself under control, he unbuckled the seatbelt and got out of the car. Clark was half out of his own side by the time Lex made it around the front of the car. 

Lex tossed him the keys. "You drive home. I don't think I'm going to make it." 

Clark stood there, blocking his path to the passenger seat. "Are you all right, Lex?" 

He tried to detour around Clark, found him to be the original immovable object. 

"What did I say, Lex? I thought everything was all right... what happened?" 

"Everything's fine, Clark." 

"Everything's _not_ fine, or you wouldn't have told me to drive back." 

Why was Clark making this so complicated? "All right then. Give me the keys." He tried to grab them from Clark's hand, but he held them away from Lex easily, and Lex refused to play keepaway for them. 

"I don't mind driving. I just want to know what's wrong." 

He looked at Clark, at the concern in his eyes, the utterly sincere worry for him, and caved. "All right. But do you mind if we have this conversation in the car?" 

Clark studied him, then nodded. "Okay." 

Lex didn't feel like pointing out that the grammatically correct answer in this instance was 'no'. When Clark moved out of the way, he got into the passenger seat, fastened the seatbelt and sat there staring out the passenger window. 

He felt the car rock slightly as Clark got in, and the door closing. Then Clark's hand was back on his shoulder. 

"Hey, what's wrong?" 

He flinched, and the hand was removed. "Would you believe, nothing?" 

"This doesn't look like nothing, Lex." 

Lex conceded that with a slight nod. "We should go now. There's probably some law prohibiting stopping on the side of the road except in the case of an emergency." 

"You're trying to distract me," Clark accused, but turned the car on nonetheless and cautiously pulled them back into traffic. 

"Is it working?" 

"Not really." 

"Ah." Lex kept his hands on his lap, where they couldn't betray him, and let his head fall against the seat. Eyes closed, cocooned in the comforting hum of the moving car, he said, "I'm fairly certain that I don't want to know what you think of me. If it's good, I have a responsibility to convince you otherwise, and if it's bad, well, then I might not see you again." 

He waited for Clark to protest, knew that Clark had trouble seeing bad in anybody, much less his friends. 

Clark surprised him. "Wanting to convince me that you're not good isn't the best way to prove you're bad. Bad guys don't usually try to protect others." 

"Fine. Use logic." His voice sounded petulant to himself. Tired of struggling against it, Lex said, "I just... I'm not sure I can handle it if I let you get much closer and you change your mind about me. And you will. Change your mind, I mean." 

The long silence that followed was almost enough to let him nod off, if his nerves weren't jangling in anticipation of whatever Clark was thinking so hard about. 

"You... you're talking about your past, not who you are now, Lex." 

"Don't you know, Clark? 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'" 

"Are you planning to repeat your past?" 

"It's not that simple. I can have all the good intentions in the world, but my past has shaped me into the person I am now, and that person isn't as good as you are." 

"Worse than Whitney?" 

His eyes flickered open. "Stop joking." 

"I'm not." 

"Well, then. Much worse than Whitney." 

"You would've tied me up in the cornfield as the scarecrow?" 

"No." 

Clark's grin was as good as a response. He obviously thought that it meant something that Lex wouldn't imitate someone as foolish as Whitney. 

"I don't want to disillusion you when we're this far from Smallville, Clark. I've got my cell, but it's still a long walk back." 

"Huh?" 

Patiently, although he knew it was all wrong, Lex explained, "I would have done worse. Whitney put you out there because he perceived you as a rival for Lana. His mistake was that doing so ran the risk of making you seem sympathetic to Lana while at the same time tipping his hand that he disliked you. It was a poor strategy. If I'd been in his place, I would have made sure that whatever I did both removed you from the picture and kept you from suspecting me." 

"Wow." 

"Yes, 'wow'." His head hurt. "I'm sorry, Clark. I... you shouldn't have asked. I didn't want to tell you." Not that he would have enjoyed it either when Clark inevitably found out the truth about him on his own. He'd just hoped that, when the time came, he'd have enough hold on Clark not to lose him altogether. 

"So why are you telling me?" 

"It's a requirement of the Luthor Full Disclosure Treaty of 2002. I'm not allowed to date anyone who isn't aware of the consequences." 

A long pause, and then Clark said mildly, "Okay, Lex, I agree. You're evil." 

The pounding in his head was almost overwhelming. "Thank you. I think." 

"You traded your life for Whitney's when Earl took over the fertilizer plant. Only someone who was truly evil would do that." 

"Er..." 

"You helped Chloe get a summer job at the Planet, allowing her to wreak havoc on the world at large. Creatively evil." 

"Clark..." 

"You dated Victoria. Enough said." 

"Well, granted..." 

"And, finally, the worst of all, you saved my dad from the Nicodemus flower, and he came home and made me eat my vegetables. Definite evil." 

"You don't like vegetables?" 

"They were brussel sprouts, Lex. Nobody likes brussel sprouts." 

Lex laughed. It made his head hurt more, but he laughed anyway. "So why do you grow them?" 

"I don't know. Lex, speaking as an expert, do you think maybe my parents are evil?" 

The innocent look on Clark's face only made Lex laugh harder. 

-the end- 


End file.
